


But first, survive

by CammienRay



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 01:59:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1964652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CammienRay/pseuds/CammienRay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been 14 months, 9 days, and 15 hours since Mike Ross met Amy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But first, survive

None of the irony was lost on him, let's be clear. Mike Ross could be a narcissistic, over-eager idealist, but he was never an idiot. It took him all of 7 seconds of meeting Amy to see the glaring, blinding parallels.

For 14 months, 9 days, and 15 hours, he blamed Rachel. Of course he could never pursue anything with Amy, he was tied down with a girlfriend. An on and off girlfriend. A talented, beautiful, successful, amazing girlfriend. One who deserved much better than him, by the way.

So that - that was why. It's not that he didn't notice. The way the air got thick on the flight to Chicago, the time she accidentally grabbed his hand. The way she flushed when he touched her shoulder and covered it up by dictating the morning schedule to him at double time, fumbling with the files she had neatly stacked on her desk. The goosebumps and guilt that filled him when he saw her asleep on the couch in his office, after that night she stayed up till 3am going through 26 boxes of archived files to find the one signature he needed. The increasingly less subtle comments he got from the increasingly fewer friends he had outside of her.

It was because of Rachel, he told himself, that he didn't - couldn't - overstep that wavering, flickering line between professional and personal. With Amy.

Spoiler alert: it wasn't because of Rachel. (Who was he kidding with that, to be honest. Like he was too noble to cheat. Ha. He's not that great of a man.)

It was at 10:30pm, not yet buzzed on celebratory whiskey, in the middle of laughing - a loud, stomach-grabbing laugh - that it hit him. He saw the laugh lines around her eyes that he had memorized 14 months, 9 days, and 13 hours ago, and just like that, the genius put the pieces together.

"I don't want to lose you."

Blurted out, the words falling over each other, like they came out years too late.

She rolled her eyes and raised her glass.

"I'm not going to move to Chicago, I was kidding you dumbass-"

"No not- I mean yes, no, yes, that, I was just making sure..."

He trailed off, looking down, knowing he was receiving the silent one-eyebrow-raised face.

She didn't push it. A few more moments with the whiskey and she was sitting on the floor with a deck of playing cards, telling his fortune.

But he knew then, and he could never unknow. He could never again be unconscious to the panic in the pit of his stomach at the thought of taking one step in a direction that might not have her in it, in some way, in some context.

Survival instincts trump the need to be loved. How psychological.

The metallic elevators opened and he stepped onto the marble floors, to deliver paperwork that could have just as easily been sent by fax, courier, anything.

There they were - a dark grey Tom Ford suit, leaning against her desk. His smirk, the flip of her red hair, the one liners fired off too quickly for anyone else to catch.

He walked forward.


End file.
